Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

That's assuming that you can actually get 5-7 dealers to compete :)

There are few things to take into account:

1. We're working with real dealers behind the scenes, calling them if we have to. We don't use automated systems (not because it's impossible, but because it leads to a poor consumer experience). So there's a cost aspect to it.

2. Since dealers can see each others' offers, there's some competitive dynamics at play here too. The nth dealer to join often thinks that s/he has a worse chance of winning the deal because other dealers got there first. The effect varies proportionally (possibly exponentially) with the number of dealers participating. We don't want to promise 5-7 dealers if we can only realistically get 3-5.

3. We split-tested the value propositions for our plans, especially around # of dealers. What we've got now seems to work pretty well in terms of driving people to pick the plan we want them to pick (Plus).

4. We've found that with 3-5 dealers, buyers generally reach the local (in terms of geography) minimum w.r.t to the price of the car. Adding another 2 dealers doesn't get the buyer much and only wastes the dealers' time.

That said, we will continue to monitor this and test it. Thanks for your feedback!



The nth dealer to join often thinks that s/he has a worse chance of winning the deal because other dealers got there first

Maybe you do this, but would it work better if you told them that you wouldn't provide the customer with the offers before some time (day or two?)?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: